Archive for April 4th, 2018

How to Steal a Country describes the vertiginous decline in political leadership in South Africa from Mandela to Zuma and its terrible consequences.

Robin Renwick’s account reads in parts like a novel – a crime novel – for Sherlock Holmes’s old adversary, Professor Moriarty, the erstwhile Napoleon of Crime, would have been impressed by the ingenuity, audacity and sheer scale of the looting of the public purse, let alone the impunity with which it has been accomplished.

Based on Renwick’s personal experiences of the main protagonists, it describes the extraordinary influence achieved by the Gupta family for those seeking to do business with state-owned enterprises in South Africa, and the massive amounts earned by Gupta related companies from their associations with them.

The ensuing scandals have engulfed Bell Pottinger, KPMG, McKinsey and other multinationals. The primary responsibility for this looting of the state, however, rests squarely with President Zuma and key members of his government. But South Africa has succeeded in establishing a genuinely non-racial society full of determined and enterprising people, offering genuine hope for the future.

These include independent journalists, black and white, who refuse to be silenced, and the judges, who have acted with courage and independence. The book concludes that change will come, either by the ruling party reverting to the values of Mandela and Archbishop Tutu, or by the reckoning it otherwise will face one day.

Robin Renwick, Baron Renwick of Clifton, is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords. He was ambassador to South Africa during the period leading to the release of Nelson Mandela. He subsequently served as ambassador to the United States.